This week I had the chance to sit down with one guy who knows the roads of Ecuador better than anyone I know, Jack Abercrombie, a guy from Atlanta who has been living in Ecuador a few years now.

He has a truck he uses to help new arrival expats in Ecuador move large loads of goods and pets within Ecuador. You can reach him at journeymanjack.com@gmail.com or 770-828-7913(USA) or 098-743-3009(ECUADOR).

We started chatting about the differences between driving in the USA vs Ecuador.

1. No right on red in Ecuador. Hard one to get used to.

1A. Lane-challenged drivers who just kind of mesh, its even worse on the coast in Guayaquil where the lanes aren’t even painted on the larger roads sometimes.

2. Pedestrian laws. Way different in Ecuador too. As they should be in my opinion. Like in nature the bigger object has the right of way, hence the car over the walking person. Pedestrians must yield to cars in Ecuador, not the other way around like in the USA where cars must stop in the middle of no where so a pedestrian can cross the road.

3. Honking. Also, Ecuadorians use their horn and flash their headlights A LOT. I think its because there are a lot of dumb drivers who change lanes or pull out onto highways without looking properly. Also on curves or at stop signs in country towns. A flash of the lights is good to let other cars know you are there as they may be planning to zoom past their stop sign.

4. The Roundabouts. Heard they are starting to get more common in the USA but in Ecuador they are everywhere and they’re great in the countryside. No one has to stop, its just a continual moving wheel with one simple rule, the people already in the traffic circle have the right of way.

5. Lots of one way streets. In Ecuador there are MANY one way streets, and they are often not marked. So you have to kind of guess like by how the cars are parked and other small factors you learn as you go.

6. Parking in VERY tight spaces. Literally, in Quito Ive seen cars parked on the road with one inch between them and the other car on either side. You get used to it. Often you have to park your car in parking lots that force you to fold back your side mirrors.

7. More likely to get car stolen. Take extra little precautions like don’t park on the street at night in Ecuador. Trust me you’ll be glad you did. A friend of mine in my little town showed me how he can disarm an electronically locked car and the alarm within about 3 minutes. Its practically common knowledge in Ecuador.

8. All stick shift, no automatic cars. I had to go back to driving class to learn the stick. Very few automatic cars in Ecuador. Its just a preference.

9. Traffic cops out for “lunch money”. When pulled over in Ecuador, you’ll often see the drivers standing out of their cars pleading with the traffic cops. Often the louder you plea the better in Ecuador. Some cops when they see you are a foreigner will try to scare you into giving them a bribe, the best way I’ve seen to handle this is to pretend like you really dont speak one word of Spanish, even if you do, then they will often get frustrated and just let you go.

10. Different protocol with accident. When accidents happen in Ecuador it is generally a shouting match, whoever screams louder wins I guess. The police come, try to let you sort it out among yourselves, if you can’t, then they will impound both cars until guilt is determined. In the cases of a death or serious injury they will arrest the parties involved until guilt is determined.

11. “The laying down Cops”. As Ecuadorians call them “chapas acostadas” the laying down policemen or speed bumps are quite common in Ecuador especially in the small towns on the coast. Be careful for the teeth rattling home-made ones that aren’t marked and blend in with the road at night!

12. Police stops. The police stops where they may ask you to open your trunk, they are generally looking for drugs or weapons, not something to be worried about if you don’t dabble in that.

13. All the d@mn buses! As the bigger object rules in nature, so do the bigger objects (the buses) rule on the roads of Ecuador. They do pretty much anything they want often cutting you off from the far left lane as they drop off a passenger.

Enter Jack…

14….Toddlers playing on side of road unattended along highway in small towns. I get it that this is a cultural difference, and have no beef w/ the children helping their families, what bothers me is I slow up when I see this off in the distance, and my fellow Ecuadorians speed up and come around and never let up on the gas as they pass by the children & cattle, as well as the school buses & myriads of children just getting off of the school buses, is what gets to me.

15… Buses with little regard for human life. There is little to know regard for human life, city busses in town, running & gunning with elderly on board, Inter provincial busses speeding & passing / racing each other in dangerous blind curves sometimes 3 deep in a 2 lane hwy with oncoming traffic.

17…Speed trap radar cameras spitting out tix that are applied to you license plate, months later, if you slow up or are maintaining the correct speed limit, and as you pass the camera and another driver is passing your vehicle at the same time, you get a tix also. For rental cars, these are applied to your rental car license plate and put on your debit / charge card.

18. Lax DUI / DWI Laws of 3 days in jail / $360. fine / 10 points off of your license. Many Commercial & Private drivers will have a few beers early in the day hauling heavy loads & passengers, and it does not have to be around the holidays.

19…Branches and logs placed in the road in a curve b4 an accident or broke down vehicle is the ecuadorian way of emergency flares / triangles…..

20…Precarious left turns. Some will put on left turn signal, and pull over to the right hand side and wait until oncoming traffic clears before making the left turn.

21… Random stopping. Some stop right in the middle of the panam hwy and piss on side of rd. right at a Petro EC 500 meters ahead sign. ..or just stop for any reason at all, oblivious to who or what is behind them?

There you have it, a few of the major differences, other than that, its pretty much the same.

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